Club at UCI takes the running road less traveled

Victor Sun, 26, forms a Spiderman-type shadow as he crawls along two walls at the UC Irvine campus, where he is a graduate student. MINDY SCHAUER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Victor Sun, 26, a grad student at UC Irvine, flips out on campus as a member of the Parkour team. The group performs dare-devil stunts off buildings, stairwells and other dangerous-looking places. "It's called being a kid even though you're 21," joked member Kevin Shotts. MINDY SCHAUER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Kevin Shotts, 21, a mechanical engineering student, zooms off a platform towards a wall at UC Irvine. He is part of the Parkour team of students who perform stunts on campus. MINDY SCHAUER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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UC Irvine student Kevin Shotts uses a wall to push off as he jumps off a 5-feet walkway. He is part of a group of students who use the campus as their gym. MINDY SCHAUER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Passersby at UC Irvine react after seeing student Victor Sun jump from cement stairs, land and then roll. Sun is part of the Parkour team that performs stunts off objects on campus. MINDY SCHAUER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Victor Sun, 26, forms a Spiderman-type shadow as he crawls along two walls at the UC Irvine campus, where he is a graduate student. MINDY SCHAUER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Kevin Shotts isn't jumping off the back of UC Irvine's Langson Library building only for the thrill of it.

When the third-year mechanical engineering major leaps off the library's ledge, tumbling down a grass hill the moment his feet hit the ground, he's working on a Parkour technique to absorb vertical momentum, he says.

He and his fellow "traceurs" in the Parkour and Freerunning club at UC Irvine can be seen doing this leap – and a breathtaking array of other stunts – around the campus as they practice the obscure sport.

The buildings, structures and landscape at UC Irvine form a distinctive ecosystem to members of the club. They're students of all levels and academic disciplines who practice on campus together about once a week for an hour – though you may see them jumping over a rail or hedge to get to class once in awhile.

Parkour is better performed in dense cityscapes than the expansive sprawling campus where they practice, but members of the group are constantly looking for the best ledges to jump off of, the best openings to dive through or the best walls to leap onto.

"The more you do it, the more you see it," Shotts said, pointing out some of the campus' most opportune locations for Parkour and freerunning, such as the stairwells scattered through the social sciences buildings.

Shotts argues that Parkour is one of the safest sports a person can do, though you wouldn't think it by watching him jump from ledge to ledge on the UC Irvine campus. By learning about what you can do with your body and the environment, you're also learning what you can't do, he said. Also, since the club does not compete, there's no reason for anyone to do something they're not comfortable with.

Most of the students watch and admire Parkour and freerunning experts featured in YouTube videos, effortlessly leaping from rooftops to the ground and bounding across railings and walls as if their arms and legs were made of rubber.

"When you watch those videos online, you're seeing the finished product," Shotts said. "They might do 100 flips in a gym before doing it on camera. Nobody just goes out and jumps off a building without some planning."

In it's nearly three years in existence at UC Irvine, club founder Chris Sequeira said he's the only person to have been seriously injured. During a stunt, he fell 15 feet onto a concrete sidewalk, breaking his hand, fracturing his right ankle and spraining his left ankle. It wouldn't have happened if he had planned out his route better, said Sequeira, who is majoring in psychology and social behavior.

Members believe the benefits of practicing Parkour far outweigh the risks, though. Club member Victor Sun, a second-year graduate student in the biomedical engineering department, said the methods involved in Parkour help him conceptualize his fears and challenges and then conquer them.

"It's a good feeling when you work toward something like that and finally achieve it," he said.

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